In Flint area, health officials have detected 10th fatal case of Legionnaires’ disease in the middle of an outbreak that, as per many health experts, is linked to the city’s water crisis. On Friday, the state Department of Health and Human Services said that the death in 2015 now belongs to the 88 cases of the disease reported between June 2014 and November last year.

Officially, no direct association has been found, but according to some researchers, source of the bacteria was the Flint River, which the city started using in April 2014 as its water source.

Presently, Flint has lead-poisoned water and authorities have taken steps to deal with the issue. As per officials, the person wasn’t a county resident, but underwent treatment at a local hospital when he or she contracted the symptoms of the disease.

According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the death toll in the US history’s worst outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease has gone up to 10.

Earlier, officials said that 88 people contracted Legionnaires, and nine lost their lives. Eden Wells, chief medical executive with the MDHHS, said that on Friday, the number of fatalities rose and included a person who didn’t belong to Genesee County, but got hospitalized there at the time of the outbreak.

Legionnaires' disease is a respiratory bacterial infection that generally spread via mist that emerges from a water source.

The occurrence of outbreak took place after Flint officials started using Flint River as the source of the local water supply. So far, the link between the outbreak and the switch in water supply hasn’t been confirmed.

The press release said, “Of the 88 total confirmed cases between June 2014 and November 2015, 31 people, or 35%, received city of Flint water to their residence”.